NORTHEY, Sir Edward (1652-1723), of Epsom, Surr.

The son of a bencher of the Middle Temple, Northey was appointed attorney-general, without a seat in Parliament, in the last year of the reign of William III. He was continued in this office under Anne till 1707, when he was removed as a result of changes made by the Whig Junto.1Luttrell, vi. 169. Re-appointed and brought into Parliament by the Tory Government in 1710, he continued in office at George I’s accession, being classed in 1715 as a Whig who would often vote Tory. He spoke in the debate of 21 June on Ormonde’s impeachment, admitting that there were some matters in the secret committee’s report upon which an impeachment might be grounded but declining to explain himself further at that time. In the autumn he replaced Sir Richard Onslow on the secret committee. He voted for the septennial bill in 1716 and spoke in support of the vote of credit for measures against Sweden 8 Apr. 1717. In December 1717 he retired with a pension of £1,500 a year for the joint lives of the King and himself, subject to the condition that it should be forfeited upon his accepting any office of at least equal value to the annuity.2Cal. Treas. Bks. xxxii, 240. In 1719 he voted against the Government on the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts and the peerage bill. He did not stand in 1722, having been put down in Sunderland’s plans for that Parliament as to be replaced by Arthur Arscott at Tiverton. For the last three years of his life he was ‘afflicted with a paralytic distemper whereby he was deprived of the use of his right hand and became unable to write’.3PCC 170 Richmond. He died 16 Aug. 1723.